Yeesh, but it’s soupy and goopy out there. But you don’t need me tell you that. You already know. I suspect that you also already know that even in this stultifying heat, vanity moves with a savoir faire that cannot be deterred by the elements. Ah yes, this oh-so-human shortcoming is indeed weather-proof. Perhaps this, and not the magic number that is 42, is the answer? Nnnaaahhh. Still, we need something to take our minds of this beastly heat. And so, vanity!:

Their grit and determination were inspiring, and weirdly enough, so is this region’s almost infinite self-regard. And just as the U.S.A.’s women brought that moxie to the pitch, our locals bring their vanity to their cars. ‘Tis a truly remarkable place that way.

All that comes to mind is Peyton Manning calling an audible for some reason. Do you think this season will be his last?

Oh, hey, I remember ROM! It was a crappy toy but the comic evolved into a decent book. I enjoyed it, but not as much you do, apparently. I’m gonna have to go back to the interwebs and find out what was so special about it. I’d catch up on the issue itself, but licensing, y’know?

Ah, yes, I remember these guys. They were an ‘N SYNC tribute group. I always wondered why I never wondered what happened to them.

Yup. That’s how we do here in the South Central of PA. And this is how we do nationwide:

Hello good people! I’ve been away for these past few days, but not by choice. Nope. Instead, I was forced away by a nasty web-hosting site crash. It wasn’t pretty, but it did teach me a vitally important lesson – BACK UP YOUR SITE. Yup. Lesson learned. (Cure the “The More You Know” logo.) Rather than celebrate by trying harder to learn more about site backup best practices, I thought I’d just take the vapid route instead. And what’s more vapid than another feature on the Harrisburg area’s ongoing vanity plate issue?:

*sigh* OK, dummy, I’m gonna explain this to you very, very simply: Ohio State does not care about nor consider Penn State to be a rival. They don’t care. You are just another team that they play. You aren’t Michigan, and you certainly aren’t any sort of potential SEC or PAC-10 college playoff rival. In short, you are an afterthought at best. You don’t even qualify as comic relief. Verstehen Sie?

…Express? Are you telling us to position ourselves relative to something and/or towards a certain direction? Are you trying to say that you claim an interest in all things East Asian? Or are you claiming some sort of heritage from that part of the world? So many questions come from this plate. Well done.

So, I’ve learned my lesson. It took the short, sharp shock of getting my site jammed up in a crash to do it, but I’ve become a little wiser for it. Plus, it reminds me that one should always pay great heed to the New Pornogrpahers. After all, they did warn us about this sort of thing a few years ago:

Once we did sizzle; now we slog through drizzle. Such are the changing fortunes of the weather. It’s been raining, it’s been pouring, but luckily this old man hasn’t been snoring. Sleep is elusive enough as it is. I don’t need any vanity in my life either, but there it is anyway. Oh well, at least I won’t be losing any sleep or skidding around slick roads because of it. Let us spend some of our indoor time productively. But before that, let us waste time looking at silly license plates:

I too enjoy their delicious donut and donut-related products. I hope you brought enough for everyone.

It’s all about the Benjamins, I see. Thanks for adding the C and clearing up any ambiguity for us. Now we know who to ask for a couple of bucks should the need arise.

The good news is that it’ll take relatively little effort to change this to ‘4NEVRUS’ after your divorce. 🙂

It’ll clear up here soon, and then we’ll be back to sun n’ fun. In the meantime, just think back to these two winters and remember that it ain’t so bad out there. Besides, I kinda like overcast days myself. 😉

June looms. It’s getting warm and the ghost of winter is long gone. People are out and about, stripping away clothes and banishing doubt. We are learning to live again, man. In the moment and all of that jazz, y’know? Alas, though, part of living is occasionally embracing folly. And what can one classify as folly? Yup, vanity. Let’s take a gander.

It’s the hippest library in the world. Lots of people with beards and Warby Parkers reading Rimbaud in the vernacular. You’ve probably never heard of it.

Are Steele what? Don’t leave us hangin’ mid-question, my friend. We are dying to know what’s on your mind. C’mon, help a blogger out, won’t you?

Paws free? Do you think that’s wise? You don’t even have opposable thumbs and you’re rollin’ around in a car. You…OH, GOD, IT’S YOU, ISN’T IT TOONCES?!

Heh. Toonces. That one takes me back a ways. Here’s a little late 80s SNL nostalgia for yinz:

Tra la! It’s May! The lusty month of May! That lovely month when everyone goes Blissfully astray! I can’t adequately express how deliriously beautiful this month has been so far. After a dreary, seemingly never-ending winter, this is so refreshing. But the march of vanity is still with us. And that sense of continuity is what buoyed me through the dark months of winter and what now keeps me aware that the bitter and sweet and connected, man. It’s deep that way. That, or I’m just easily distracted by shiny metal objects during any time of the year. I’m guessing the latter – call it a hunch. But anyway, on to the fun!

Welp, Spring has sprung. I can tell because I came back from a run with those itty-bitty black flies mashed on my face. But that’s OK, because that means no more winter! Hallelujah! But the one season that will always be with us is Silly Season. If you doubt me, then take a gander at these plates:

I doubt I’ll take this person up on their offer, but I’m not going to make fun of him or her, either. The last thing I need is a roundhouse kick to the head.

Somehow an image of agents of a vague yet menacing government doesn’t come to mind when I see this plate. Hell, I don’t even see the restaurant chain in my mind’s eye.

Hey, long time no see, buddy! What’ve you been up to lately? We haven’t heard from since you did that portrait of your mom way back when. We gotta catch up sometime soon, man!

April showers have been light, but the May flowers could still be all right. Pardon the bad rhyme, but it’s all I have at the moment. I’ll do better, I promise. In the meantime, here’s to better, brighter, longer, milder days!

Welp, March has decided to roll in rather ferociously. It’s It’s cold, but the weather ’round these parts is promising to improve. At least that’s what the weather folk are saying, so, one should take that prognostication with a grain of salt. Still, I will take any hopeful message that I can get. Speaking of hope, I hope that the following vanity plates provide yinz with a little entertainment:

Very bold, picking such an unlucky number. If nothing else, it’s fine way of scaring off triskaidekaphobic stalkers.

“Yeah, there was no way I was gonna let that smelly old Nazarene and his knocked-up child bride stay in my inn. After all, it’s MY place; I can keep out anyone that I want. That’s the point of private property after all. I don’t want that kind of trash bringing down my place’s brand. Still, charging ’em to let her deliver in the manger was a nice touch. Go me!” – An excerpt from “Ayn Rand’s New Testament.”

Maybe the snow and ice will someday. Maybe. In the meantime, we’ve still got vanity plates. And (Ham) Radio Ga Ga:

Christmas ended and 2015 started. And since then, Old Man Winter’s just been a-kickin’ us in our collective groin. Not fun. Not fun at all. No siree Bob. This sucks. And I can feel the ol’ Space Madness Cabin Fever mounting. I need a safety valve. And so do you, I bet. So, in the spirit of not losing it just yet, here’s silliness rolling around on the back o’ people’s cars around the South Central of PA. Here are some vanity plates:

Better than a Plague Doctor, I guess. Your grasp of the obvious must make for a charming bedside manner.

Why are you beaming? Is it because you think your plate witty? Are you even trying?

What, is this the last thing Gina Davis said in an alternate ending to that one Cronenberg film? Or, oh Hell, I dunno. That’s all I got.

I hope these helped. Winter is still a bastard though, and well, Cork St. Clair expresses my feelings about bastard people better than anyone:

The good news is that January’s over. The bad news is the February isn’t. And with it has come another Patriots Super Bowl victory (thus disproving the existence of a just God), Jon Stewart’s stepping down from The Daily Show, and the soul-corroding exercise in futility that is Valentine’s Day is looming. But, hey, a lot of people get President’s Day off, so there’s that. There’s also more vanity plates, so, we there’s that, too. Let’s take a look:

Well, that was anticlimactic here in PA. Apparently the snow ain’t gonna git us after all. Nope, instead we just get more of the usual dreariness. But take heart! January is almost over! Now all we have to do is make it through…February. Ech. Ok, ok, one month at a time. Deep breaths. Deeeeep breaths. Let’s look at some vanity plates to keep our spirits up:

Captain of the Shut-Ins! You DO know about the term’s nasty connotation in Japanese, right?Maybe there’s some kinda ironic, geeky ownership of the word going on here. It could be that this is a really clever reappropriation of a pejorative term. Or it could be a moment of breathless cluelessness. I hope for the former but kinda expect the latter.

So, you paid good money to go on Match.com and you wound up finding out that your soul mate is a car? Good Lord, Rick Santorum was on to something, wasn’t he?!

As I wrote last week, this is just an armpit of a month. Still, it’s almost over, and the days are getting a little longer, so that’s something. That, and the consistency of silliness and self-infatuation continues to provide us with warmth through these long, dark winter months. Let’s see what vanity has for us this time around:

Yup, she’s GOD’s girl, so there’s no point in asking her out. You can’t measure up. It’s just a metaphysical certainty. But, what if another lady has the same plate? What then? Isn’t that how holy wars start?

Well, it’s highly unlikely this person is so passionate about being a lab technician that he or she would brag about it. Possible, yes, but highly improbable. No, what I think we’re looking at here is someone who loves Labrador Retrievers. As dog-loving goes, this is about as easy as it gets. They’re just big ol’ lovebugs. Way to reach for the low-hanging fruit! If you wanna impress us, start loving some weird hybrid like a Dachsdoodle or some such.

I am uncertain that anything of note happened in Philadelphia in 1970. I mean, sure, there was probably an almost toxic level of hostility in the air, but that’s every year in Philly. Instead, I think this is either a fellah celebrating seven decades on this ball of confusion we call Earth or a way he reminds himself that he was born in 1970. Either way, it’s kinda a pedestrian, if you’ll pardon the term. But, hey, it’s been that kinda month.

It’ll be February soon, so, there’s that. And that means, um, President’s Day sales? Well, that, and the inevitable disappointment that is Valentine’s Day.

Ah, January. It’s just a crap month. The holidays are over but the weight remains. College football ends but bloviating sportscasters still drone on. And your annoying coworkers/family members/neighbors, don’t have the decency to just, y’know, go away. So, it’s up to us to make our own fun and just get through this kidney stone of a month. Let’s look at some vanity plates, shall we?

I thought maybe this was a surname, so I looked it up on the Google. Nothin’. Nothin’ fits this word. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. Crap, this really is January.

Is this a play on #YOLO? “You only Moo once?” That’s kinda fitting for the ag show, I guess, but beyond that, um, oh Hell, I don’t know. Stupid January.

The first Siamo was pretty good, but the sequels have complete wastes. No, wait, that was Taken. I was thinking of Taken. Crap. It’s this month man, it’s this January. It’s messin’ with me. It’s messin’ with me bad.

Sigh Just gotta slog through it all, I guess. Just gotta hang on until February. Then I can get drunk and lament the state of my love life. So much to look forward to. Until then there’s ennui, I guess. 😉

The year winds down and we are looking for a place to go out for New Years Eve and where to recover and watch football on New Years Day. It’s a time to look forward, but it’s also a time to look back. And in doing so, I see that this was indeed a vain, vain year. And, judging from the rate and volume of the vanity plates here in south central PA, 2015 won’t be much different.

Actually, this one leaves me a little flat.

Sled Works? Slide Works? Which is it? These are very different things. Either way, this cold, dry winter offers little opportunity for an aficionado or merchant of either.

Donna Karan has a strong lesbian following, is that what you’re saying? Or, is this an ad for a flood-control engineer?u

Ho Ho Ho, Yinz! Or however you wish to say for what holiday you may or may not be celebrating. It..oh Hell, Happy New Years! OK?! That’s what yinz’re gettin’! At any rate, even thought the year is ending, the cavalcade of vanity plates is still chugging along. Consider this a bit of constancy in a season of change.

If the owner of this plate were born in the NYC metro area and/or had a close family member with whom s/he bonded over the Yankees, then yes. Otherwise, fuggedaboutit.

Y’know, all I can think of is a salacious parody song lampooning a sorority that I heard in a college all those years ago. I hope this is something else. I’ll start wishing in one hand.

I got nothin’. Is this a ham radio handle? That’s my best guess, and admittedly not a very good one. Help?

And with that bit o’ confusion, I bid yinz adieu. May the coming year be filled with groovy stuff and folks plenty sweet and not the slightest bit gruff! (Trying my hand at rhyming here. Bye for now!)

Hey folks, how yinz doin’? Yinz get yer Xmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa etc. shopping done yet? Well, either way, I’m willing to bet most of you didn’t rely just on Amazon to get your shopping done. But, at least you had company while you braved the holiday nuttiness that passes for traffic out there. Company that rocked vanity plates like these, I bet:

Oh, you’re just so HAWT, Bay-bee! I can’t see how you can even go out in public without getting mobbed. You’re very brave.

Of course, there are lots of hotties out there, but are they choosy? Are they elite? Are they…X-KLUSIV???

Like Drax, nothing goes of this owner’s head. S/he is too quick and would catch it. So, Hawtness and being X-Klusiv are nice, but speed kills, baby!

And that’s all for now. In the meantime, good luck with your shopping and be sure to be extra good. If you are, a fat man in a red suit might leave you something extra special this year – your own vanity plate! (By fat guy in a red suit I mean a guy a at the DMV. And by good, I mean good with money so that you can afford to purchase your own plate. Unless, you know, you have good taste, in which case, never mind.)